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If the Cold War had turned 'Hot', would Russia or America have won?

It really depends which point it happens at, or when you define the Cold War beginning.

From 1945-1949 the US wins pretty easily due to their monopoly on the Atomic Bomb. Up till the mid-sixties the US retained a large lead, probably being able to devastate the Soviet Union and it's Eastern European Allies. Whilst the USSR could damage America and especially Europe, there was little chance of them coming out on top.

Later on nuclear parity was reached which really gave credibility to the idea that a nuclear war would end civilisation. The the Eighties the Soviets had nuclear supremacy, however both sides could still comfortably annihilate each other and their respective allies. Of course as the Soviets had a bigger expanse of territory to move refugees to, and a superior civil defence program, they might come out better in the end, marginally.

1945-1965: NATO 'victory'

1965-1991: Mutually Assured Destruction (Possibly more Soviets alive)

It took 7 pages to get to this, the obvious answer? ;p

Reply 121

Adam Kelly

I reckon America would have won, because of all the reasons above really. The US would have been supported by us as well as other NATO nations.

Whilst the soviet union would have been on it's own, perhaps maybe supported by China, but at that time maybe not.

US would have won with NATO support.

Reply 122

Janey92

We came very close to the possibility of nuclear war with the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early 1960's. It doesn't really matter who would win to be perfectly honest. It's not like the USA or USSR would have long to celebrate victory. If USA fired the missiles they had in Turkey, it would take a matter of minutes for the USSR to fire the missiles they had in Cuba, so any kind of victory would be short lived. Obviously, I'm not only referring to the 1960's, but for the duration of the "Cold War".

As for the UK's position in this, I don't think we would have rushed into any kind of Nuclear War. And as some people have mentioned China wouldn't have rushed to help USSR, they had somewhat strained relations with USSR after Stalin refused to share schematics of the atomic bomb.

Obviously there's the question of atomic monopoly. Throughout the "Cold War" the USA had a significant lead over the USSR as far as nuclear bombs were concerned. So thinking at it from that point of view, the USA could have dealt a lot more damage to the USSR. Taking into account the possibility of the UK getting involved (I'm considering all possibilities). They would have caused even more damage.

So no matter which way you look at it, we can't possibly decide which side would have won because there are so many variables.

Sorry if its a bit lengthy lol. I did International Relations at A-Level haha! :smile:

Reply 123

Struggle

10

Carl Sagan stated it quite correctly with his analogy of the arms race; "two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five". In other words, war between the Soviet Union and the US would mean Hasta la vista baby.

Reply 124

mf2004

14

Original post by Struggle

Carl Sagan stated it quite correctly with his analogy of the arms race; "two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five". In other words, war between the Soviet Union and the US would mean Hasta la vista baby.

I'll be back!

Reply 125

ChannieAlana

16

Neither because we all would've been dead with the amount of nukes both countries have got.

Reply 126

SR21M

"Throughout the "Cold War" the USA had a significant lead over the USSR as far as nuclear bombs were concerned. So thinking at it from that point of view, the USA could have dealt a lot more damage to the USSR."

No offence but thats not all of the story. USA did NOT always have a lead in "bombs" (missiles were the real players in cold war), and nor they do today. The USSR was the first nation to make a practical H bomb (one that actually fits inside an aircraft bomb-bay instead of something the size of a house which isnt a use at all. They also created BY FAR the most powerful weapon in history, Tzar bomba had a yield of 50MT, (most powerful nuclear weapon USA ever had in terms of yield was 15MT).

USSR was the first to introduce ICBMs with the R-7 semyorka, it was for some time light years ahead from anything US possessed. Manned bombers of which USAF Stratifical Air Command had better advantage over its soviet counterparts at that particular time soon became irrelevant. However US did take a lead few years later when they introduced there own ICBM that were much lighter and more compact then there soviet counterparts. from 1945 to 1965, USA did have a slight edge over USSR in total nuclear strike capability, but later on Soviets to turn that over by developing monstrously powerful and sophisticated weapon systems that some still have no counterpart today such as the R-36, TOPOL-M ICBMs, Even Russia today IMO has an edge in first strike nuclear capability.

USA did initially have a lead in developing smaller and more compact (and hence more practical) SLBMs (submarine lunched ballistic missiles) with missiles such as the Polaris, But that lead was turned around with newer soviet missiles such as the R-29.

Soviets also had a much more organised and planned evacuation plan and understructure than USA did. If you go to any big cities in Russia or other post soviet states, you can find massive networks of underground bunkers designed to hold vast amount of people for long peroids, some even had nuclear power stations to keep them running for long periods from the outside nuclear winter. USA had no such things, it had plans to look after the 10% of the populations elites, namely the political and economical elites, they never went to the trouble of investing and planning such defensive measures for its population. Soviets were probably more concious after loosing 22-28 million lives in WW2.

These are all theoretical. The real outcome of the cold war turning hot is beyond anyone's comprehension, i love to see wise asses (not you personally but everyone in this thread, including me time to time :P) make predictions on such things. From what military histories tell us, predictions whether there made by "experts", Generals, politicians or Historians turn out to be completely wrong 99/100 of times. Who would have predicted WW1 would end up being a bloody stalemate? Who would have guessed of the combined arms operation that the Germans exploited ruthlessly at the beginning of WW2 as it took over europe, so called experts were still getting there head around WW1 tactics and strategy (certainly the french and English military though that way at the time). Vietnam apparently ment to be a walk in the park but outcomes always turn different.

True story isNo one knows what the outcome would be, there would be massive lives lost on both sides and no one would want to count who lost more. It is impossible to guess the outcomes and nature of such conflicts unless it already occurred. Warfare is one of the most unpredictable things to study

Reply 127

Piprod01

17

No one would "win", is the short answer.

Reply 128

King Kebab

16

No one would have one. Both sides would have been nuked.

Reply 129

cl_steele

2

there was a nice quote i once heard cant remember exactly how it went so i'll parathrase; 'In war there are no winners, just someone who doesnt loose as much'
no one would have won though, the USSR would rpobably have come off better, relatively, due to the fact they had [at least by the end of the 'war', more nukes than the Americans and a far larger land mass to try and wipe out. Plus whilst the Americans might have had more accurate missiles the Russians compensated by employing far larger bombs take the Tsar bomb for instance outstripped most of the american ones by at least 5fold. Regardless who would have won? as everone has said no one but the Russians may well have come out slightly less worse.

Reply 130

onda

1

No one. Everyone would have died except those living away far far away from the nucleur warzone.

Reply 131

pol pot noodles

19

Original post by cl_steele

there was a nice quote i once heard cant remember exactly how it went so i'll parathrase; 'In war there are no winners, just someone who doesnt loose as much'
no one would have won though, the USSR would rpobably have come off better, relatively, due to the fact they had [at least by the end of the 'war', more nukes than the Americans and a far larger land mass to try and wipe out. Plus whilst the Americans might have had more accurate missiles the Russians compensated by employing far larger bombs take the Tsar bomb for instance outstripped most of the american ones by at least 5fold. Regardless who would have won? as everone has said no one but the Russians may well have come out slightly less worse.

Doesn't matter, the US still had more than enough firepower to destroy the entire Soviet Union. In fact the United States has the advantage in that it's a lot more major cities spread out all over the country, where as the hub of the Soviet Union was all concentrated around in western Russia.

Reply 132

supercali2

Nobody would have won. We would all have died. Thank god it stayed cold.

Reply 133

Will Lucky

11

The only time period where a winner would have emerged is if it occurred between 1945-1951. The USA was the only great power to have nuclear weapons, and considering what happened in Japan they wouldn't have hesitated to use them so odds are if a war occurred in that time frame the USA would have emerged victorious but Europe would have paid a heavy price for it.

At any other time neither side would have won.

Reply 134

Medved

Original post by supercali2

Nobody would have won. We would all have died. Thank god it stayed cold.

yep Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD probably the most apt acronym ever

Reply 135

PuDzeh

America would have won.

Reply 136

Ambry

18

Original post by Piprod01

No one would "win", is the short answer.

That is scary o.o
To be honest I agree no one would really win sadly, if one side tried to nuke the other, it would result in retaliation.
They both had too much power, and both could have destroyed so much.

I'm very glad it didn't come to it o.o

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 137

ShadowHawk

8

Death would win.

No, really. One country would send a nuclear bomb, the other would counter it by sending another bomb to explode the first missile.

Then, due to the extremely high radiation levels emitted from those weapons, mankind would die out.

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 138

Cannotbelieveit

15

Depends on whether or not Nuclear Weapons were used or not.

If it had gone nuclear, both Russia and America would have been obliterated, along with Europe. Russia would have lost less people because most of Russia's population live in rural areas, whereas it's the opposite for the US. However, the ensuing fallout, nuclear contamination and nuclear winter would have slowly killed off most of the worlds population; experts have estimated that 50 years after a nuclear war, the worlds population would have been only 500 million, with most of those people being in the Southern Hemisphere.

If a conventional war occurred, America would have won - Their military were superior in terms of equipment, training and morale, also their Air Force and Navy were the biggest and undoubtedly the best in the world. Plus the US had the support of NATO allies such as the UK, France and West Germany, who also had very strong military's.